0:00 Introduction 3:49 Empiricism 5:18 Locke's ideas of abstraction 8:24 Conclusion's of the senses 10:10 Image experiment 10:56 Absolute idealism 12:28 Ideas are derived from sense impressions 13:53 Where is the matter? 14:53 Properties of matter 16:31 Occam's razor 17:31 Substratum of ideas 20:29 Proof of God 23:16 Ideas happen to us 24:12 If a tree falls in forest..does it make a sound? 27:38 Criticism of Newtonian physics 30:09 Respect for the unknown and predictability 31:22 Cause of skepticism 33:33 Cause of atheism 35:55 Benefits of idealism 37:21 Who cares? Believe in God 39:10 Berkeley's influence in America 40:03 Johnson's refutation of Berkeley 40:38 From philosophy to common sense
Such a profound yet innocent idea. I remember it well, having debates in reception school about the the fact that we couldn't really determine if what we were all seeing was the same thing in reality
I once had the same thought. However I believe to live "right" we'll have to define reality as what we perceive rather than what it is, it'll make things easier. Time to time, awareness ab the true reality state could be profound too. But thats for older me to ponder. Now I gotta live.
It's been said that Descartes' evil demon is Berkeley's God. Also interesting is that just as Berkeley used Occam's Razor to defend idealism, so Russell used it (in Problems of Philosophy) to defend the existence of matter.
Dr. Staloff's cadence, body language, minimal notes, enthusiasm, and even water glass all remind me of Dr. Sugrue, at least in some ways. I wonder what common or shared background these two share?
It seems that Berkeley's critique of matter is exactly the same critique you could use against his conception of God. He doesn't extend his fundamental Empiricism to God itself and rather seems to jump to it as an inference to the best explanation, in the very same way that Materialists jump to matter as an inference to the best explanation.
Hmm... The one glaring criticism I have for Berkeley is this: If you take away the lectern, then don't you also take away the sense data in your mind of the lectern? And doesn't that prove then that the matter of the lectern must exist at least in some capacity apart from the sense data in your mind? If you wanna argue that you retain the memory of the lectern that's fine but I don't think memory is the same as immediate sensation. No lectern = no sense data. Perhaps I misunderstood, but this was the thought constantly ringing in my head for the entire lecture.
